To Obey Is Better

"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul"  (Deut. 10:12, ESV).
"...[He] became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him"  (Heb. 5:9, ESV). 

The best measure of a spiritual life is not its ecstasies, but its obedience."  (Oswald Chambers)

Samuel reprimanded King Saul for disobeying the Law and offering a sacrifice and reminded him that "to obey is better than sacrifice...."  His commands are not burdensome according to 1 John 5:3 because He gives us the power to carry them out.  The Israelites promised to obey the letter of the Law in Ex. 24:7 when they should've been suing God for mercy at all costs, knowing full well they can't fulfill the Law.  The only true measure and standard of faith is obedience:  "Only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes."  See:  they are forever equated (cf. Heb. 3:18-19) and let not man put asunder what God has joined together (cf. Mark 10:9).  Our faith is one of obedience and the Scripture speaks of being obedient to the faith in Acts 6:7; Rom. 1:5; 16:26 et al.  This entails repenting and following on to know the Lord in obedience and faith or trust.  When we go one-on-one with the Lord at the bema, He will inquire:  "Did you learn to love and trust Me?"

Our thought life is paramount to an obedient life too; we must get our thoughts in line with the Lord's viewpoint and have a Christian worldview.  We must take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ as per 2 Cor. 10:5.  We must obey the voice of the Lord, obey the Word, and obey His chief directive, which is to love one another.  This is what Christ meant when he said that if you love Him, you will obey Him.

Christ was obedient to the point of death (cf. Phil. 2:8) and learned obedience by what He suffered (cf. Heb. 5:8).  We cannot avoid or complain of our crosses, that pale in comparison to His, and we must realize that He doesn't ask us to do anything He didn't do Himself.  He earned the right to be obeyed.  Now, creatures owe inherent duty and obedience to their Creator, but Christ's demands are that of love, not the Law, and these can never be satisfied.  We must accept Christ for who He is, viz., the Lord of all, and this entails Lordship salvation, which is not easy-believism or the faith that you can live any way you choose after salvation--as long as you believe.

Pharaoh asked Moses, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey Him?"  God isn't just another god in a pantheon, but the Almighty Creator of the universe and is worthy of all worship and obedience.  There may come a time when you may have to choose to obey or disobey the government, due to conflict with Scripture, as the disciples did in Acts 5:29, "... We must obey God rather than man."  Civil disobedience is the result when our convictions tell us the government is wrong and should be disobeyed.

Paul said that if anyone doesn't obey his letter (cf. 2 Thess. 3:14), we should shun or avoid him; this refers to church discipline (it is one thing to be a sinner, and quite another to claim to be a Christian and be living in sin, because the believer cannot go on sinning ("No one who abides in him keeps on sinning..." says 1 John 3:6, ESV).   And in conclusion, Paul tells Titus (3:1, ESV):  "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work."  Peter writes:  "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood..." (1 Pet. 1:2, ESV).  Why must we accept Christ's obedience on our behalf?  By one man's disobedience, all were made sinful, so by one man's obedience, all are made righteous.  (Cf. Rom. 5:19).  Why is obedience the issue?   We are slaves to the one we choose to obey!  (Cf. Rom. 6:16).

In sum, we can praise God that He accepts vicarious obedience, and that, upon believing in Jesus, we are reckoned as righteous as Him, i.e., we are declared righteous, not made righteous upon salvation.  Indeed even Christ learned obedience from what He suffered (cf. Heb. 5:8), and when He was twelve years old "he went down to Nazareth with them [his parents] and was obedient to them"  (Luke 2:51, NIV).  He is our Exemplar and we must emulate His manner of life, of which it is an honor to share in his sufferings and witness, as we progressively learn obedience as proof of our faith.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Our Birthright

"Sin wants to destroy you, but don't let it.." (cf. Gen. 4:7). 
"... Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it"  (Gen. 4:7, ESV).

Ever since Adam, we have inherited the old man himself, known as the old sin nature.  It is a virus, and if it were yellow, we'd be all yellow!  Someone said that sin is man's declaration of independence from God; true, we try to be good without God in the picture and in our belief system.  When we fail to account for God in our reckoning we become corrupt and there is no limit to how corrupt; for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" says Jeremiah 17:9.  It doesn't matter how bad we are but how bad off we are since all have sinned and it doesn't matter whether you drowned in six feet or six hundred feet of water, you're dead in sin!  God simply doesn't grade on a curve, though we may seem like saints compared to the likes of Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler.  A scientist extraordinaire, Albert Einstein, who instigated the Manhattan Project, said that it is "easier to denature plutonium than the evil nature of man!"

It is said that nature forms us, sin deforms us, schools inform us, prisons reform us, but only Christ can transform us--that's the wonder of the gospel message, in changing lives.  We all share solidarity in Adam and must be set free from the power of sin by the cross of Christ.  In salvation we are free from the power of sin by the living Christ, the penalty of sin by the crucified Christ, and the presence of sin by the coming Christ, it is said.  We get a new birthright in Christ as members of the family of God in salvation.  We are not as bad as we possibly can be or utterly depraved as unbelievers, but as bad off or totally depraved, meaning every part of our nature--our will, intellect, and emotions or heart--are affected by this sin virus.  We have no power over sin, except through the Holy Spirit.

What is sin? When we fail to do what is required and leave God's will undone, and do what is forbidden!  When we miss achieving the standards of God's law and fall short we sin--sin is universal--as they say, "Nobody's perfect!" or "To err is human!"   Sin is defined as a want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.  It is further added that it is any thought, word, action, deed, or omission contrary to God's nature and incompatible with it.

Sin is lawlessness, it's faithlessness, it's trespassing, and we must call a spade a spade;  if we call it by any other name we make it more dangerous, such as labeling poison as "Essence of Peppermint!"  Paul lumps all men to together in that they are all in the same boat, as it were, and have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God (cf. Rom. 3:23).  It is because of sin that we deserve to die and the death principle is already a work in us.

It is important to understand that we are still sinners as believers per Gal. 2:17 and we are not basically good, but we are evil in our natures through and through with no vestige of good remaining from the fall.  It is assumed people are inherently good, but we are all flawed and have feet of clay.  There is no sliding scale and we are all in the same boat of condemnation, in that we are at the mercy of God and there is no hope but by His grace.  It is important to note that sin is only possible if there is a God because it is defined in terms of God:  as Albert Camus said, "The absurd is sin without God."

It is ironic that the more lively sensed of sin, the less sin, and the closer you approach God, the more aware of it you become!   C. S. Lewis observed:  You must see how bad you are to be good, and you don't know how bad you are till you've tried to be good!  It's like quitting cigs, you don't know how addicted you are till you try to quit!  The evil of sin is that it enslaves and estranges for a double whammy!  In conclusion, we must realize that we are not sinners because we sin; no we sin because we are sinners [it's our inherent nature to sin], as theologians like to say.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Real Reason For Being

The raison d'etre for the church universal and local is more than to provide a sanctuary and home for worshipers to get their spiritual batteries recharged; its main purpose is to infuse truth into a darkened world that doesn't see the light of day.  Just as Jesus said that He came into the world to bear witness of the truth and that he, who is of the truth, listens to Him, so we are to fearlessly proclaim the gospel truth even if it falls on deaf ears.  It is untoward to us that the German church turned a deaf ear to Hitler and failed to expose him before it was too late--let this be an example to learn from history!

Pastors and preachers have the thankless job of preaching truth and the sign of a prophetic message is that it makes the uneasy feel comfortable, and the comfortable to be thrown out of the comfort zone of ease.  We have too many at ease in Zion today, just as Amos observed.  Yes, complacency has set in and we even have few who are willing to stand up and be counted when the truth or true doctrine is at stake; denouncing heresy and apologizing for the faith has become passe and unpopular, and even uncool!

The way of the world is to live and let live and to become eclectic in our faith, but this kind of philosophy may be doable for an individual in his private life, but it is unthinkable that a church gives up the quest and thirst for truth.  We should never think we've arrived at all truth and that it is shrink-wrapped and freeze-dried, so as to need no new investigation.  Yes, we do know the doctrines of grace and the gospel message, but we are not to think we need not learn more and teach more.  The world looks to the church for salt and light or for a cue to what to do in this evil age.

We need to take stands and fly our colors for the Lord, being willing to follow Him no matter where He leads--and sometimes the truth leads to unwanted places.  We must be willing to go wherever the truth may lead, if we want to ever know the truth; i.e., if you won't admit you're wrong you don't have the right mindset for finding truth--we must admit our ignorance, and this is where churches come in, as they boldly proclaim the truth, even if it offends the standards of society and the norms of culture.  The Bible is the guide, not the variables and givens of this world.

We don't need preachers who are people-pleasers and seek popularity or approval of man and not of God.  We need ones who dare to preach the truth when it hurts and even to their own shame.  In summation: we don't just go to church merely to hear a sermon that will make us feel good, but to go to a sanctuary of the truth and not platitudes--if we cannot rely on the church for this, where else can we go?  As Jude was admonished:  "Contend for the faith" in Jude 4, so we also have a mission to relate Christianity to the real world in application to all areas of life.   Soli Deo Gloria! 

Getting Down And Dirty

"God in heaven appoints each man's work" (cf. John 3:27, NLT).

Some of us aren't willing to do the dirty work that we see is beneath us, and this was so in Jesus' day when He draped a towel and washed the disciples' feet, a task fit only for non-Jewish slaves.  Peter objected and didn't think the Lord should stoop so low, but that's what grace is:  " Donald Grey Barnhouse said, "Love that goes upward is worship; love that goes outward is affection; love that stoops is grace."  We must learn to relate to God's agape or unconditional love.

There are many dirty jobs few people are willing to do, and that's probably why they pay a lot:  for example, the proctologist.  I wouldn't do certain jobs for all the money in the world, like being a male nurse, because I don't have it in me to be that gracious and willing to work with people's physical problems.  This is why we all need each other:  we are all suited to different work and have different talents and we need to be willing to go where no one is willing to go.  God hasn't given up on them because no one is too bad to be saved; we're all totally depraved and as far from redemption as can be without the grace of God.  

I like to call this humble work "the order of the towel" like when Jesus did the foot-washing of the disciples.   We need to be like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now canonized, who went among the untouchables caste of India, who had been written off as beyond redemption.  The right attitude is that of George Whitefield, who saw a man go to the gallows and remarked:  "There but for the grace of God, go I." Again, I call this the order of the towel when we stoop to do God's work and don't think anything is beneath us.

A mother who changes diapers knows what love is: it's not necessarily a feeling but an act as we demonstrate it by our deeds.  This is what discipleship is about:  going where God calls us and doing what God calls us to do.  Just like dung has fertilizing power, so Christians who get down and dirty have fertilizing power in the world, as they show Christ's love to the world.  Just like there are dirty jobs that no one wants to do, but need to get done, so believers need to realize that they must be willing to get down and dirty with mankind.  Whenever God gives you the challenge to humble yourself or eat your humble pie, rise to the occasion!

The world owes Christianity for the rise of hospitals, leprosariums, orphanages, relief organizations, and schools because the other religions failed to see the mission to reach out to the needy as Christians did.  We must see ourselves as servants:  "For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life--a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45, HCSB).   We may have to be willing to stoop to save others:  "save others by snatching them from the fire; on others have mercy in fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh."

We must be aware that "bad company corrupts good morals" (cf. 1 Cor. 15:33) and pick our friends wisely, but that doesn't mean we have to be afraid of any social contact as if we could be contaminated by fellowship--we'd have to go out of the world to avoid sinners altogether.
Soli Deo Gloria!